From _The Journal_ office the lake looked blue and calm, disdaining the
stray gusts of wind that tossed newspapers and rubbish about in the
alleys below Main Street. Horatia had moved her typewriter over to the
window so typewriting might be accompanied by some compensations.
Langley said it increased her mistakes one hundred per cent, but Horatia
insisted that it doubled her inspirations.
“Which is necessary,” she added, “when one is trying to be both
brilliant and informational. The two things don’t track.”
She hated typewriting. Her fingers, untrained to accuracy, stumbled and
missed their aim and wrote absurdities. But typewriting was one of the
things which must be done if she was to do journalistic work, they told
her, and Horatia had decided that working on a newspaper was worth a
good many sacrifices. She had gone through some of them already in the
shape of family protests and disapprovals and if another one was to take
the shape of a 1913 Oliver typewriter, that too was to be borne. Gladly
borne for the sake of the thrilling contact with unprinted, raw news,
with information on a hundred subjects that had never interested her
before, for the sake of the kaleidoscopic picture of the city’s life
and means of life, for the caustic brilliant comments of Jim Langley and
Bob Brotherton, sitting with their pipes smoking furiously as they
uncoiled the truth about some happening, or wrote editorials of things
as they ought to be. Out of the terrific tangle of the philosophies and
political economies of the world she saw these men draw threads and wind
them neatly on a spool of thought. The tangle remained a tangle but a
fascinating instead of a discouraging one. It was more what was said
than what was written, though enough out of tune with the current
hysteric dread of American Bolshevism was published to account for
Harvey’s characterization that Langley had “no policy” which meant the
fatal lack of the right one. Horatia knew now why Jim Langley’s paper
had never appeared in the Grant household. She had seen the president of
the Dry-Goods Association of which Uncle George was a pillar denounced
in its pages for crooked political dealing. She knew why the
advertisements that _The Journal_ ran were those of obscure stores or
coöperative establishments or small firms employing union labor. In two
months she had learned more about politics, psychology, philosophy and
labor problems than she had known there was to learn. Most of it had
come direct from Langley. He had looked a little surprised when she had
turned up that Monday morning, whimsically surprised.
“So you came?” he said simply with a thousand implications in his tone.
And she had answered, “I came,” giving therewith the answer to all his
implied questionings in her tone. He gave her a desk and told her
briefly, almost abruptly, what he thought she could do. She could
“cover” certain meetings for them, mostly big lectures and concerts that
must be reported, with such theater notices as would be necessary and
for the rest, it would be mostly writing up the notes of Bob Brotherton,
or Charley Jones, the other reporter, when their work crowded them too
much.
“You see,” he explained, “you take no one’s place but you can relieve
the pressure on all of us.”
That was the outline of her work but compressed in the outline she found
ten and sometimes twelve hours a day of fascination. The two other men
had taken her advent rather smilingly but they soon found her useful.
She learned to read their handwriting, to decipher their notes, to write
a story from their verbal outline. And “in spite of her typewriting,”
said Langley, “it is good copy.”
Little by little she had come into the confidences of the office. The
men talked freely in front of her, tried to show her how to typewrite,
explained their standards, told of their own histories and ambitions.
Bob Brotherton had meant to write and was particularly expansive about
his wasted ambition when he had been drinking a little. Horatia came to
recognize the effect of liquor in his conversation and to discount it.
She liked him too because Langley had told her something of Bob’s
miseries, his domestic tragedy of an insane wife and a feeble-minded
child, both now in institutions somewhere. And it was impossible to keep
from liking Charley Jones, out of college three years and hoping,
praying and urging that Labor would come into its own soon. All the
problems of the city and of the country, even of the world, were met in
the little office by Bob’s literary pessimism, Charley’s cure-all and
the philosophical endurance of Langley. Langley never got angry or
excited. When the others were tangled as to policy or inner meanings, he
hit the truth on the head with some single sentence. Horatia, sitting at
her typewriter or at her table with her back to them all, would catch
herself listening for his comment and when it came would seize upon it
as truth and final.
She had no idea of how much she had changed the office, of how much more
work and less idling had come with her. Perhaps because her dogged
determined industry made them ashamed, perhaps because her uplifted
profile at the window or her apologetic frowning smile at some mistake
she had made charmed them, they all worked with a new energy. And they
were all amazed at her lack of self-consciousness. They were
experienced, each in his own way, and they watched her for those traces
of self-consciousness which break down the barriers between business
and personal relations. But there was none of it. She never blushed,
she never seemed afraid. It was all interest--pure interest.
“I can’t get it,” said Bob one day after she had left the office. “She
likes it here. What does she see in this decrepit sheet to interest her?
She ought to be listening to troubadours under her window, instead of
pounding a typewriter.”
“Precisely,” said Langley, a little over-dryly. “She ought, but she
wouldn’t. She’s gone on a hunt for her own romance--that’s what the
modern young girl does instead of having it brought to her.”
“And she’s found it here?” grinned Bob.
Langley shrugged his shoulders and tilted his pipe.
“Temporarily. The view helps.”
He sent Bob out on an assignment shortly after and then stood before the
window watching the darkness close down on the water.
There was no doubt that _The Journal’s_ affairs were looking up. A new
movement had come into the city--a non-partisan political element who in
default of a paper of their own were using his. They were backing a
strong man and a comparatively decent one for mayor in the November
elections and political advertising had swelled the funds of _The
Journal_ as much as its advocacy of a strong candidate had increased its
circulation. And Langley found his old nerve coming back into his
writing. He admitted occasionally to some of his companions that it was
worth while writing if someone was reading what he wrote. But there
seemed to be other things that stimulated his thought. He had a way of
watching Horatia’s profile, clear and pure against the window, of
drinking in the frank admiration in her tone and her face as she talked
to him, the sweetness of her impersonality--those things were getting
into his writing too. But he never admitted that. So on this October day
when Horatia sat struggling with her typewriter, he acted quite as if he
was oblivious to her presence.
She rose at last and brought her copy to him and he groaned as usual at
the misplaced letters and figures.
“But read it,” said Horatia gaily. “It’s a description of the mass
meeting the women got up for our candidate which mentions the name of
every lady present who can afford to subscribe to the paper. I’m getting
on to the game. And please don’t give me any more to do this afternoon
because I want to go.”
“Nice businesslike attitude,” said the editor.
“Everything’s done,” said Horatia, defensively.
“All right.”
“I’ll tell you what I want to do,” volunteered Horatia.
Langley had permitted himself no inquisitiveness but he seemed glad and
composed himself to listen.
“My revered uncle and aunt feel so nieceless since I work all day and
sleep all the time that I’m home that they have decided to do a very
wonderful thing. They are going to Florida for the rest of the winter to
look at beauties which they are getting too old to appreciate. And as it
seemed useless to keep the stone house open for me, I am told to go to
live with Maud. I don’t want to live with Maud, however, and, truth to
tell, I don’t think Maud, though she won’t admit it, wants me to very
much. I’m not much help to her and I rile her pool of life. She has
admitted that if I could get a ‘cunning little apartment and some girl
to live with me,’ I might be more content. And so I have found a cunning
little apartment and the friend dropped from heaven to live with me. She
is the new woman in the government labor office, Grace Walsh. I heard
about her--she was five or six years ahead of me at the University--and
I went to see her and she’s very keen about it, living with me, I mean.”
“Where is the cunning place?”
“On Sixth Street. New apartment building. I’m going to meet Grace there
now and when we get the pictures hung, you can drop your editorial
mantle and come to call.”
Langley flushed a little. It was a long time since he had had such
light-hearted invitations flung at him--or so it must have seemed to
him. And, vaguely understanding the flush, Horatia was suddenly enraged
at the ostracism which had been forced upon him.
“Won’t you walk over and see the place now with me?” she said,
impulsively. “It isn’t half a mile.”
She expected him to refuse her. He had not repeated his invitation to
lunch since she had been in the office and, courteous as he always was,
Horatia fancied that he avoided personal contact with her when he could.
But now, to her surprise, he rose.
“I’d like to. I’ve been wanting a walk all day.”
They swung along briskly and this time the sardonic Langley seemed left
behind in the office. The new one laughed like a boy and walked as if
all the rigidity had melted out of his body. On the street, as they
passed people whom he or Horatia knew, his hat was off almost with a
flourish as if he greeted the world afresh.
“You act as if you’d dropped all the cares of the world,” laughed
Horatia.
“No--I’m still carrying them. But it isn’t the cares of the world that
weigh you down. It’s your own little cares. If you have none of those
and no ugly scars left by them you can carry the troubles of the world
easily enough. What an easy problem to solve Bolshevism is, if you
aren’t trying to solve it with a mind diseased by personal aches and
worries.”
Horatia did not answer. She hoped he would go on into fuller, more
specific confidence. She hated herself for the question that so often
cropped up in her mind as to what were the real facts of the Hubbell
trouble. She understood so much of him now that she wanted to know
about that. It would be the last link in the chain--no, the last step in
the ladder that mounted--whither she did not know. Somewhere in her
vaguest thoughts she and Jim Langley understood each other perfectly,
scoffed at the rest of the world that did not understand.
But he did not go on. They reached the apartment building, and Horatia,
pulling out her latch-key long before it was necessary, rang for the
elevator.
“Your friend is there?” asked Langley, suddenly, sharply.
This time it was Horatia’s turn to flush. She dropped from the clouds.
“Of course,” she said, impatiently. “But I like to use my latch-key.”
She rapped on the door where a card already announced the names of Miss
Walsh and Miss Grant. There was no answer and she unlocked the door and
pushed it open. A note lay on the little table in the hall. Horatia
picked it up and read it. Then she turned to Langley with her head a
little higher than usual.
“Grace had to go downtown for some things. She’ll be back later. You can
come in anyway, can’t you, and let me show you the place?”
His eyes met hers squarely.
“It’s better not,” he said, quietly.
They stood confronting the silly, awkward little situation with varying
emotions. His rage at the fact that he couldn’t be natural for fear of
compromising her--that he had to protect her not from himself but from
his reputation, was natural enough. And Horatia raged because she did
not know that she dared urge him, and she wanted to.
“It’s absurd,” she cried impatiently. “It’s stupid. It’s beastly. You’ve
been abominably treated. Do you think I care what people say?”
His eyes seemed to melt at the championing kindness of her tone--then
froze again.
“The oppressed always appeal to the romantic. But you want to make sure
of the merits of the oppressed. Some other time, Miss Grant. I enjoyed
my walk.”
He was gone immediately and Horatia flung furniture and rugs into place
until her anger was cooled. Grace came in half an hour later to find
things in amazing order.
“You’ve done everything.”
“I wanted to work,” answered Horatia, briefly.
And then----
“Look here, do I have to have a chaperon every time I want a man to come
up here? Do you?”
Grace pulled off her gloves, sat down on the sofa and surveyed the room
and the question calmly. She was a calm person, who balanced an
unshocked acceptance of any laxity or scandal in the world of literature
against an equally uncomplaining acceptance of the restraints of the
world of action. And she seemed fond of Horatia, though Horatia had a
feeling of getting acquainted only up to a certain point.
“I suppose not,” Grace said slowly. “People may be a little vicious in
their talk if you’re not somewhat circumspect. I wouldn’t advise
sessions with married men--or ones with highly colored reputations----”
“What does it matter what people say?” urged Horatia.
“Oh, it doesn’t--and it does. I think it would to you. But the question
of having men here alone isn’t likely to arise. For the kind of men
you’d want wouldn’t come if they thought your reputation would be
endangered. There are a few survivals of romance, and the knightly
spirit, and one of the last to go, if it ever goes, will be the care
that men take of women’s names. It’s my experience that names rank more
highly than bodies in male psychology.”
There was no sign of any remembrance of the episode in Langley’s manner
the next day and Horatia found no difference in his attitude towards
her. She never saw him outside the office. The curtains were hung in the
little apartment. Grace sat up an informal tea-table at which Horatia
assisted. Even Maud came occasionally with some of her friends to savor
this bachelor life, and they pretended to envy for half an hour. It was
a very pleasant apartment and Horatia found that being an intellectual
in the city was far different from being an intellectual in the confines
of West Park or a highbrow at the University. Not all men were afraid
of brains. Charley Jones came and brought young men with him, several
friends of Harvey’s came and there were others justifying themselves by
this claim or that to a seat near that tea-table where Grace Walsh,
looking like a Dutch picture, poured out tea and calm cynical judgments
and Horatia, in a yellow silk dress on Sundays and blue serge on
weekdays, pressed lemon, cream, tea cakes and joy of living on them.
It was wonderful to see how the excitement of the new life brought a
richer color into Horatia’s cheeks and a glow into her eyes which made
every gown the most becoming one. It was amazing to see how her power
over men grew. She seemed to toss a mental challenge to every man she
met, a challenge not to a combat of words or phrases but to a struggle
over the interesting and vital things in the world. She was enjoying
herself so much that she tempted them all to discover her secret of
enjoyment.
But she allowed nothing to interfere with her work and more and more of
her time was spent at the office as the fall days grew shorter and the
lake more steadily grey and the work heavier. The November election
promised to be a most important one in the history of the city. _The
Journal’s_ candidate, Nels Johnson, came and went in the office. He was
a heavy little man with a kind shrewd face and a tolerant smile. Horatia
liked him and she liked to hear him talk and give opinions for
publication. Langley liked him too, she knew. She could hear them often
through the door of his office discussing things which had nothing to do
with the election.
“The Reds are rotten, physically and morally, and they run on a single
track mentally, most of them,” Langley would say, “but I’ll be damned if
they aren’t much more attractive than the slinking crowd that want to
put out all the pipes in the country. I’d sooner have an old-style
Tammany man than one of these ministerial sneaks.”
And Bob Brotherton, his nose a little red still and his utterance a
trifle thick from indulgence in some private store of liquor to which he
seemed to have eternal access, would agree. And the candidate for office
would agree. And Charley Jones, with some comment on the attempt of the
churches to dominate labor, would agree. And Horatia, vigorously nodding
at her typewriter, would agree too that she wanted the world run by
freedom and not by imprisonments.
But perhaps the nicest moments and hours for Horatia were the evenings
in the office when they all worked late and tobacco and accomplishment
were thick in the air. Sometimes the reporters would all be out on some
errands and Langley would talk to her--always impersonally, never
emotionally, but expansively, going back into the history of the city to
explain some political anomaly to her and telling her, in spite of
himself, about his ideas and plans. She came to respect him more and
more and to believe in the fineness of his instincts. But still she
never heard him say a word of his personal affairs. She wondered how and
where he lived. Somewhere on the other side of the city, she knew, and
that was all. He never told her about the old scandal and she never
could find out more about it. At a certain point in his career Langley
had simply shut his mouth and there was no one else who knew more than
Harvey Williams.
Horatia gloried in the growing prestige of _The Journal_. Even Harvey
bought it now and Maud’s early opposition had changed into a feeling
that Horatia with all her eccentricity was bringing distinction upon
them. She never said that to Horatia. But she talked of her
“intellectual sister” without embarrassment now on the Boulevard.